


some things never change

by parabolae



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom, Zero Escape (Video Games), Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Fandom, Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - Fandom
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Spoilers, i mean i guess technically there aren't any spoilers but like there's #References, technically akane is only mentioned but like he's thinking about her So, this is really crap i'm sorry, you should play all the games first tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 02:49:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7667392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parabolae/pseuds/parabolae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hasn’t had a friend in these nine years. He's had acquaintances, sure, but none of them were her - none of them were the girl he remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some things never change

**Author's Note:**

> lmao so ztd was an absolute shitshow but as always i'm junepei trash?? this is set in a timeline where akane just moves away without warning, but was never kidnapped and junpei goes looking for her anyway; the events of the games are briefly alluded to, though.

He hasn’t had a friend in these nine years. He's had acquaintances, sure, but none of them were _her_ \- none of them were the girl he remembers.  
  
He thinks about this sometimes; thinks about how everything changed for him after she moved away without so much as a “good-bye”. He thinks about the easy way she’d laughed, the way her long brown hair fell about her shoulders, messy and wild; a sharp contrast to her earnest, serious personality.  
  
When she left — when she disappeared, vanished without a trace — he’d felt as if he was stranded, left adrift. He’d never had many friends, and she is the last one he’d ever had. He can talk to people, of course. Jokes come naturally to him. Self-deprecating words flow easily off his tongue. Bad puns are easier. (He’s always been good at language; better than he’s ever been at math, anyway.)  
  
He can hold a conversation, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to have another friendship as strong as that.  
  
Sometimes he wonders where she’s gone; thinks of her riding the train to class in the morning; thinks of her at festivals with her brother, both in matching yukatas: her in a ridiculous character mask, but still so serious, still so sweet. He wonders if she still likes aliens and paradoxes, mysteries and the stars; he wonders if she ever thinks about him, sometimes, but dashes the thought from his mind. Ridiculous, he thinks, absolutely ridiculous, to think of a girl long-gone with such fondness.  
  
But sometimes, when he’s sitting alone in the lecture hall, tapping the end of his pen absentmindedly against the desk, he wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t gone. He wonders if they would have stayed friends or fallen out, and if he’d have passed the entrance exam and gone to the same high school and university as she would have. (How does she look now? Taller, definitely; but still a slender little thing, and a chatterbox, always ready to talk about something she’d read in some obscure science-fiction book or other.)  
  
He wonders, dreams, imagines. He thinks of her on the train. He thinks of her, happy with somebody else - _maybe she’s met a boy, who knows?_ \- and feels a slight pang of regret.  
  
But he wants her to be happy. He knows he does.  
  
Twirling his pencil between his fingers, he daydreams.  
  
He wants to find her, he decides. He thinks of a plan; travelling from continent to continent, across oceans and plains, looking for her. It’s sketchy at best, the edges unrefined, but it enthralls him — or maybe that’s just the thought of finding her once again. Whatever it is, he clings to it.  
  
He will find her, he thinks to himself.  
  
Whether it takes a few hours, or a year, or forty-five years. He _knows_ he will find her.

**Author's Note:**

> (the whole thing about junpei not having friends is based off an offhand comment junpei makes in the first escape room -- i took it as junpei being self-deprecating as always, but apparently a great number of fans took it seriously, which DID piss me off but i just ran with it.)


End file.
